David Quinn
Pacifism only works when everyone adopts it, writes David Quinn
Should the Church become entirely pacifist in its outlook? Should it abandon the teaching that, given certain circumstances, war is justified? That is to say, should it give up just war theory?
These were the questions asked at conference held in Rome recently by Pax Christi, the Catholic peace movement. The answer given was that the Church should abandon this teaching.
The conference was addressed by Cardinal Peter Turkson, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. He flagged the possibility that Pope Francis could issue an encyclical on the topic of war, peace and non-violence.
Cardinal Turkson himself told the conference: “Too often the ‘just war theory’ has been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war, and it can undermine efforts to develop alternative capacities and tools for conflict to be overcome and transformed.”
Final statement
Conference delegates in a final statement said that just war theory had too often been used to justify war rather than prevent it.
This last point might well be true if we look back through all the long centuries that the Church has existed. The Crusades come to mind as an abuse of just war theory because various Popes justified the Crusades, although even today the Crusades have their defenders.
These defenders point out that at the time of the First Crusade, Christians were experiencing severe persecution in the Holy Land, that Constantinople was under threat (the Byzantine Emperor had appealed to the Pope for help), and that the pilgrim routes to the Holy Land had been closed.
Subsequent Crusades were launched to shore up the Christian-held territories in the Holy Land and nearby. Ultimately the whole enterprise ended in failure. The Christian-held territories were vanquished, Constantinople eventually fell, Muslim armies were then able to cross into Europe and Vienna was twice under siege. Had Vienna fallen, the next major stop for the Turks would most likely have been Rome.
Mind you, not even the strongest defenders of the Crusades would defend everything the Crusaders did, any more than everything the Allies did in World War I can be justified.
But if the Church did sometimes invoke just war theory where it should not have been invoked, more recently it has very rarely invoked it. John Paul II opposed the first Iraq war, for example, even though Iraq had invaded Kuwait, and Pope Benedict strongly opposed the second Iraq war which resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent chaos that has engulfed Iraq.
So the Church has been moving in a more pacifist direction, but it would be a big mistake to abandon just war theory completely. In fact, it would likely increase the amount of injustice in the world. How so?
The paradigmatic case is World War II. Imagine if the Church at that point had already adopted pacifism and furthermore, had persuaded the Western powers (Britain, France and America) to do the same? What would have happened?
Well, in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, instead of declaring war on Germany in response, Britain and France would at most have imposed economic sanctions on Germany and possibly cut off diplomatic relations.
Hitler would not have invaded France in May 1940 or fought the Battle of Britain. Instead he would have been free to concentrate the entire might of his army on the Soviet Union and it is extremely likely that the Soviet Union would have been defeated.
He could have pressed on with the Holocaust free of the possibility of outside interference and at his leisure could have decided whether or not to pick off France with the Soviet Union out of the way.
One way or the other, he would have completely dominated Europe and even a ‘free’ France and Britain would have had to obey his will or risk invasion.
So the result of the pacifism of France and Britain in this scenario would have been a Nazi-ruled Europe and the total destruction of European Jewry. Would this have served justice? It is extremely hard to see how.
Control
What would have happened to the Church itself? It is hard to know but later in World War II Hitler regretted not destroying the Church in the territories under his control. One way or the other, he would have been able to do what he liked.
Pacifism only works when everyone adopts it. If everyone does not, then aggressors are given a license for their aggression. If the automatic response of everyone they attack is to lay down arms immediately, then aggression can only be encouraged and aggression wins everywhere.
Pacifists will sometimes counter by saying that Jesus told us to turn the other cheek. But this is not an injunction to turn someone else’s cheek, only our own.
If we are attacked, it might be appropriate to turn the other cheek, but if we see someone else being attacked and we tell them to turn the other cheek and that does not work, are we to simply do nothing else, or are we to go to the assistance of that person if we can?
Cardinal Turkson said that participants at the Pax Christi conference who have lived in war zones said “we are tired of war”. Of course they are, but abandoning just war theory would not help them.
Many of the world’s conflicts today are taking place in Africa. It is doubtful whether a single war on that continent comes close to fulfilling the requirements of just war theory. (How many of them are defensive, for instance?)
So how would abolishing the doctrine of just war make a difference? In all of these conflicts, the Church preaches peace and does what it can to bring about peace. But for the most part it is ignored.
Indeed, Pope Benedict XV’s constant appeals for peace in World War I were consistently ignored by the warring parties.
What does Pope Francis think? It seems he is not a pacifist because speaking to reporters in 2014 about the slaughter of Christians at the hands of ISIS he said it was “licit to stop the unjust aggressor,” but that military action must be approved by the international community and that the type of force used must be evaluated.
So it is extremely unlikely that the Church will abandon just war theory because there will always be cases when war is justified as a last resort. This does not mean, of course, that the Church must give up efforts to bring about peace where it can. That can never stop.
